Authentic Networking is not your average networking book. Instead of just pumping you with general technique, it guides you towards finding your natural networking style. On top of that, it challenges you to develop yourself as a person and a networker, towards more succes on every front.

Authentic implies that what you see on the outside, is the same as what’s on the inside. You won’t be learning to put up a front. However, the same techniques are used to build communications about who you really are. It’s like an open kitchen: people can see that you actually ARE who you say you are, that you DO what you say you do.

Based on the most successful literature and years of experience as an entrepreneur in different areas, this book is the essential start of a rewarding and sustainable career in any field.

Content:

Learn about and make use of the Laws of Networking, that are at play in every group and interaction.

Find out about your personality style and how to approach different types of people.

Finetune your goals, and learn to separate Planning from Vision.

Define your Product and Pitch, so you always communicate well.

Practice your networking skills with an array of exercises aimed at honing your conversational and group impact.

Receive a list of Do’s and Don’ts straight from the masters of networking.

For many people, networking equals ‘sucking up to important people at receptions’, and ‘faking interest in boring people in the hopes that they’ll introduce me to someone that I want to meet’. You have to talk to strangers, which is uncomfortable, with a hidden agenda and try not to let it show. It’s all kind of fake and forced. Or is it?

It’s our attitude towards networking that makes it tiring or annoying. Often, it’s also our own insecurities about our professional worth and possibilities that make it seem like we have to attack a seven-headed dragon with a glass of sparkling wine in its hand.

Question is, is the only way of networking? Could it be possible that ‘networking’, in its broadest sense, is for everybody? That we’re already doing it, right now? That there are different ways to network, and that at least one of those ways can work wonderfully for you?

You already know what the answer is. Of course! This book will show you a few ways of networking that you may not have thought about. However! Don’t think that there is some magical way of lying on your couch watching TV, and still build a network. It will take some time and effort. But you’ll be able to use what you like and what you’re good at to do it.

It’s the difference between stretching, and changing. In this book I’ll be inviting you to stretch. That means I’ll ask you to do things that you are able to do and that are natural to you, but that you’re not used to. That’s a different thing from requiring you to change, where you have to become someone else entirely. People are attracted to authenticity combined with communication skills, and that’s exactly what you’ll learn in this book.

Curious? Let’s get started!

Introduction

What is networking?

What is Authentic Networking?

Kinds of networking

Direct and Indirect networking

Offline and online networking

About learning to network

The In & Out of Networking

Practice makes perfect

One thing at a time

The laws of networking

We’re all in the Web

Law 1 – No man is an island

Law 2 – 6 Degrees of Separation

Law 3 – The Matrix of Purpose

Law 4 – The Law of Give and Take

Law 5 – The Law of Reciprocity

Law 6 – The Law of Atmospheres

Networking strategy

Step 1 – Why?

Step 2 – What?

Step 3 – Who?

What type of networker are you?

The Social Styles Model

Step 4 – Where & When?

Step 5 – how? networking techniques

Dale Carnegie’s Top 5 Tips

Networking Do’s and Don’ts

Your Professional and Public Self

How to enter groups

Be a Giver

Be a Go-To Person

Follow up on your contacts

Conclusion

Annette Boshoff

The content is appropriate in the current economic situation in which businesses operate. Networks ensure survival as knowing someone in person, assists in building trust relationships and sharing knowledge that can prevent pitfalls such as illegal operations and the establishment of monopolies.
The final chapter can be used for personal professional development relating to business skills.